Intriguing move from the ex-leader of the LDS, Paddy Ashdown, this evening to have a unified non-CON candidate (presumably pro-REMAIN) to fight the Tories in the upcoming Whitney by-election. This is of course being held to fill the vacancy created by Cameron departure from the Commons.the
Comments
How about David Davis in 2008? Haltemprice and Howden?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haltemprice_and_Howden_by-election,_2008
Different polls showing Trump ahead in swing states.
For the FIRST time Hillary and Trump are tied at 44.5 each.
This has never happened before on my average tracking poll.
Lord Ashdown, General of Crushing Defeats, has another master plan.
So the Tories will likely get a record majority then.
As for a 'say on the deal', what the hell does that mean? What if the answer is 'No, we don't like the deal' and meanwhile the Article 50 clock is ticking? Brexit means Brexit, we're leaving, on whatever terms get negotiated. In any case, you can't negotiate by referendum.
Or, to put it more succinctly, Paddy is bonkers.
The voters will punish an attempt to "game" the by-election.
They are quite simply just another protest group that fails to understand a democratic decision made by the people. Which is why not many people vote for them.
OVERHEARD: Soon after David Cameron announced he was vacating his seat of Witney in the U.K. parliament, a source overheard Nigel Farage “getting very angry on the phone in the smoking booth of the European Parliament’s members’ bar.” Farage sounded keen to run for Cameron’s old seat, but the person at the other end was less than pleased, the source reports.
Clinton 1.615
Trump 3.075
I'm not sure whether clips from Donald Trump's appearance on medic Mehmet Oz's show, to be aired tomorrow, have yet been released. Whatever the show reveals about Trump's health is likely in itself to be completely irrelevant. Hillary Clinton may or may not manage to attend an engagement or two tomorrow, but what's important is Trump's message: his health is OK and hers isn't; he can go on this kind of show and she can't or won't. So I expect these prices to change in Trump's favour today and tomorrow.
'Lord Ashdown, General of Crushing Defeats, has another master plan.
So the Tories will likely get a record majority then.'
Can't someone find this wally an allotment or bowls club so he can retire gracefully.
http://ec.europa.eu/transparency/regdoc/rep/1/2016/EN/1-2016-593-EN-F1-1.PDF
That said: It isn't the case among the Labour or LibDem voters that I know here in Witney; I suspect you are right with some Conservatives but certainly not all of my acquaintance. Anecdotes are of course not data but in the absence of polling or any other Witney PBers that's all I have...
Imagining that the 48% will all be desperate to vote for a Remain Unity candidate is like expecting all of the voters who backed all of the losing parties in a General Election to turn up to a mass rally demanding another ballot. It's delusional and it's crackers.
This is the position of each state in reference to my average tracking poll.
Hillary lead of 8: Missouri, Georgia, Arizona tied.
Hillary +7: Maine CD-2 tied.
Hillary +6: none
Hillary +5: Nebraska CD-2, Iowa tied.
Hillary +4: Nevada tied.
Hillary +3: Florida, N.Carolina tied.
Hillary +2: Ohio tied.
Hillary +1: none
Tie : none
Trump lead of 1: Wisconsin tied.
Trump +2: Michigan tied.
Trump +3: N.Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Maine tied.
Trump +4: N.Mexico tied.
Trump +5: None
Trump +6: Colorado, Virginia tied.
Trump +7: None
Trump +8: Oregon tied.
The winning post is Wisconsin for now.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/
Old boundaries - Lab needs 13% lead for a majority
New boundaries - Lab needs 14% lead for a majority
Also:
New boundaries - Con needs 2% lead for a majority
New boundaries - Lab needs 6% lead for Con & Lab to be level on seats
May surely has to pull out every single thing she can to get this through.
http://www.ncpolitics.uk/2016/09/first-look-at-the-boundary-review.html/
Mr Farron accused Labour’s leadership of being “more content with feeling good about themselves than doing good”, adding: “I think there is nothing grubby about winning elections.” '
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/tim-farron-i-want-to-park-lib-dem-tanks-on-the-tories-lawn-a3344426.html
I take your point that it's an expensive form of generation, but I think May has probably called this one right. Nuclear provides reliable base load, whilst reducing our reliance on imported fuel and contributing towards decarbonisation, and it'll help keep the lights on. I also imagine that the Government doesn't want to piss off the Chinese, and doesn't wish to take a gamble on whether or not large scale, efficient storage capacity - allowing renewables to plug the supply gap - is developed before other forms of generation really begin to run down.
Imagine today if Remain had won...
Simples.
That’s reality…
What a gigantic BERK he is.
Is Paddy Ashdown seeking the title Remoaner in Chief?
Americans last year reaped the largest economic gains in nearly a generation as poverty fell, health insurance coverage spread and incomes rose sharply for households on every rung of the economic ladder, ending years of stagnation.
The median household’s income in 2015 was $56,500, up 5.2 percent from the previous year — the largest single-year increase since record-keeping began in 1967, the Census Bureau said on Tuesday. The share of Americans living in poverty also posted the sharpest decline in decades.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/14/business/economy/us-census-household-income-poverty-wealth-2015.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0
It's no wonder that the Tories are so assiduously pursuing a "no MP left behind" policy to shuffle all the retirements and ennoblements about, and try to make sure that threatened MPs are moved into safe seats. The advantages of getting the new boundaries through are clearly enormous for them.
But seriously, I think things will settle down.
First - everyone thought May would be boring and continuity Cameron
Then - everyone thinks she has lots of new ideas and will make radical changes
Next - (I suspect) it'll end up halfway between the two
Both parents have been remanded in custody on suspicion of child neglect.
Their kid has just been killed in an accident and they are remanded in custody ffs?
Our so called public services seem to have become ever more vengeful and vindictive.
http://dailym.ai/2cHBDGW
And I've looked at the numbers and worked out that in the current climate, annoying metropolitan middle class liberals is not going to harm her electoral prospects either...
LibDem voting %-ages during the 2010-15 parliament:
https://twitter.com/Sunil_P2/status/550716028293251073
We won't really have much of an idea about May until next month at conference, when I assume we will get some idea about what she actually intends to do. She might surprise us.
The difference being that the Tories Corbyn has the support of 40 odd% of the electorate rather than Corbyn who only has Dave and Dierdrie Spart and a bunch of inner London Guardian Readers and sundry misfits behind him.
http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2016/09/emran-mian-so-much-for-the-progressive-majority-most-british-voters-sit-broadly-on-the-right.html
1. Nuclear does not supply reliable anything. It is highly unlikely that HPC will have availability of more than 80%, as all nuclear power plants have substantial periods of scheduled and (worse) unscheduled maintenance.
2. Nuclear is extremely inflexible. As more and more intermittent power is added to the grid (and more will be added every year as it gets cheaper and cheaper), it starts to cut into baseload demand. We need power that can be spun up very quickly.
3. This is extremely expensive electricity. It will cost us approximately twice what it would cost if we built CCGTs.
When HPC was planned, it was on the assumption that natural gas was running out worldwide, and we therefore needed an alternative. Since that point, we have had the shale gas revolution in the US and Canada, and absolutely massive discoveries of natural gas offshore Mozambique and Australia. Long term, it's entirely possible we will begin to exploit the UK's own natural gas shale reserves. Gas is cheap. Gas is clean. Gas is massively abundant. And gas fits very well with intermittent electricity from solar or wind.
It doesn't seem to have been properly thrashed out in cabinet, indeed it seems as if her own minister is half hearted at best. As a result of this lack of scrutiny the policy is halfbaked. The policy leaked, possibly deliberately. She fell apart defending it at the first opportunity.
Whatever the merits of the policy (rapidly becoming AV mark 2) It is demonstrated that Theresa is crap is prime minister. God help us all!
One or two PBers were convinced that Dave would have to resign because of it.
My view is that grammars are a brand. They're about aspiration. They're about people like you and me taken out of what might have been a hum drum existence into opportunity and doing something we enjoy that is also lucrative. It is about encouraging achievement, discipline and a sense of pride in our next generations.
Anyone who is being awkward now will end up with a knighthood, a seat in the Lords or a job as Ambassador to Singapore or the Seychelles.
"TSE - closet LibDem?"